Experimental weapons feel like they should be super rare as they are super strong.
Right now as it works you can just walk up to any mech and die/get down and you get a X% chane of getting a weapon. My friend in my game got downed for a spilit second before we killed a tank and it dropped a Experimental Pvg 90. This feels like it´s a massive exploit for getting the super rare items at any point, as you can get rivals at the very start of the game this way. What is the point of grinding through the games lower tier loot, if you can just die to get the best loot?
(Imo) only rivals that spawn from killing mechs in an area should have a chanse to drop experimental weapons. This would make it so you can still get them but you can´t just safehouse farm them… cus that is a boring exploit that i´m surprised the devs did´t see…
Also they should give them extra perks as they are not that much harder then normal generic enemies… they just got barely more HP and a bigger combat group, not much of a difficulty increase from alerting a Seeker in most small towns. Maybe give them imunity to EMP? more armor? double weapons? Faster movement speed? More accuracy… group leader even? (cordinate attacks and so on) They are really easy to deal with right now… I hoped for a challenge from this update.
It is definitely weird that on starter island Runner or Hunter can drop experimental weapon to you. And after that point enemies are cannon fodder. Only thing what little limits things is ammunition. But that is only couple of skill points in Tech tree.
I agree on the theory, in practice though, I haven’t seen a single drop. Not in the starting area, not in what some might call the endgame areas, not from a freshly turned rival, nor from level 4s.
I basically agree with you (except some of them aren’t super strong, like the exp. 12G). Right now, it’s much easier to get 6-star experimental weapons than 5-star gold weapons from FNIX tanks and harvesters, and I think maybe that isn’t the intention.
It’s a delicate balancing, but I believe they could turn up the drop rate of 5-star weapons, and maybe turn down the drop rate of experimental weapons - even just a bit.
Just for reference, during the 4 months I’ve been playing this game, I have had basically 1 of each gold weapon drop - I haven’t even got 2 gold 12G shotguns. And in 1 week of rivals I’ve had all experimental weapons drop, including 2 drops of the 12G and PVG.
I have never seen AG 5 and Sjöqvist Semi Auto special(s) 5 star weapons. I know they are in the game, but just cannot get them as drop.
And HP5 5 star, i have just 1. Whole time i have played the game.
So far I gotten the PVG90 2x (1 for me and 1 for my friend) it is in my experience the strongest of the new weapons, I 1-hit a Military Harvester in the back first time I used it. It so easy to kill tanks now that I usually mess with 3x of them so that I can kill them all togheter… also since the uppdate I have not seen a singel gold drop from an enemy… looks like they might have reveresd the drop rates by accident.
So far I have gotten experimental:
2x PVG90
1x Rocketlauncher
1x SMG
I should probably have one more but game krashed just after I killed a lvl 4 harvester… sad times… but now that I tried out a little more I noticed the score of the area… I pereonally like to kill a lot of mechs to get them to spawn (sportmanslike)
But if I wanted to I cud go to an area with <1500 score and then just die to first enemy I see… ually a tank due to the areas I like to frequent. then they automaticlly become rivals and then give that x% of dropping these weapons… aka the system is flawed. Also if you wanna exploit even more (I did some futher testing) and you can damage a mech down to like >10% and then die to it and then the fight is much easier due to the mech being pretty much dead allready… works great on harvesters if you pop there rocketpods and leg joints. They will just sit and protect them self as much as possible (sitting duck), then you just walk up to it and let it stomp you…
This is only a simpel test that I tried… the system is flawed and it´s probably cool to get all this loot but im 50% through all items and I played >6h since I came back… and I kinda wanted to be able to farm for a while… also as I got the PVG90 from my first rival… that I at the point did´t know was a rival… all of them is realy easy to deal with now…and my friend got 1x as well(from me), literally have no problems with tanks anymore
FNIX hunters are still terrafing tho, there explosive darts get me all the time when they hit my friend and he moves away from the window into me :I
I killed like 3x lvl 4 and non of them has dropped, weirdly enough… got most of my dropps from just fast travling up to them as soon as they spawn and kill them quickly.
It´s strange tho how prototypes can become Rivals. They are increadibly easy to kill when your high lvl as I am with my main char. Also from the kills I done so far they have only dropped from tanks and harvesters. No drops from Hunters so far (in my experience)
I think I’ve seen a Möller PP 5-star gun drop from a harvester after the update.
At least half of the rival drops for me has been from hunters.
But yeah, I think they should increase the chance for 5-star drops, maybe so prototype harvester/tank - 5% chance, military harvester/tank - 10% chance and FNIX harvester/tank - 15% chance. And then lower the chance for X-weapons on rivals to no more than 10% chance (right now it feels like at least 25% chance for me).
For me it feels like 33% as I got 4x X-wapons on 12 ish rivals…
It would be fun if rivals that spawned in had extra weapons or buffs to make them more like minbosses, they just feel like a normal enemy but with a bigger group with them. Sometimes that makes them easier to kill.
Yeah, this is a good idea. Instead of just increasing their levels and making them more bullet-spongy, give them some more weapons and abilities we have to look out for. Have entire Hunter packs become Rivals, instead of just one. Harvesters could have larger escorts, etc.
I’ve killed around 100 tanks and 200 harvesters - I reckon at least 80% of each has been FNIX. so I guess 80 tanks and 160 harvesters that could drop gold weapons.
I got 2 of some of the weapons, but I only got 1 of each shotgun, and not a single 5-star Klaucke. I also got at least 1 of each assault rifle.
I would like to see the Rivals behavior change to fit their name & the different feel of each region. For me playing each region has a different “feel” to it but right now the Rivals sort of change that feel for me at least.
SPP
Ideas of what rivals of diffrent types there cud be 1 of ex 3 diffrent types.
ex)
Runners:
Massive packs with a rival/leader that cordinates attacks
Duel weapons
Faster, trying to flank as often as possible
Hunters:
Dedicated player hunter (constantly looks for players) Runs faster then players, hunt alone (like a super Hunter)
Group of hunters that become “Rival group”
Uniqe weapons/faster
Harvesters:
Massive pack with them of mixed Runners/hunters
multiple harvesters togheter?
“Siren call” (when attacked calls upon reinforcment from a huge area, gotta kill them quickly or risk getting overun)
Tanks:
Heavy armor (extra + thicker armor plates)
quick/hunter tank (Tank will run a lot more and don´t like to stand still, unlike otheer tanks it tries to activly hunt you down)
Rappid cooldown (weapons cooldown much faster)
These are just some of my ideas I cud come up with on the spot. What do you guys think of my ideas?
I tried to think in ways that made them more dynamic, a major threat basically. We cud need some more “boss” types enemies that sometimes it´s better to avoid if you are not prepared… apart from the “Dedicated hunter” that one will come get you… try at least
I´m speaking as someone that got bored of how easy the game gets after you found the weakspots on the mechs, and a few “advanced” guns. Also I took down a tank with my lvl 5 char when playing a new char with no gear from my main with a friend, it is just tactics
IMO rivals should not spawn before lvl 15 as tanks/harvesters.
Also there is loads of guides if you got problems, it´s just to ask All mechs have weaknesses, and as I said earlier in the thread, I seek out groups of tanks to make the fights fun… I gather a group of seekers so that morer enemies come to me constantly… but I get that new player will/might have problems pre discovering this stuff.
TL:DR
I talk about late game/after you discovered how to beat all enemies and have most purple/gold/X weapons. just my opinions but I like to hear what other ppl think as well
Rivals should be feared, but now they are just spongeier enemies
The PM I got afterwards was an even worse mistake. But, the matter’s been settled
ONT:
I played some yesterday and the Hunter Rivals definitely need an upgrade. They’re far too easy to kill, even at level 4, and hardly drop anything. Give us something that puts on a relentless chase, that we really have to outsmart. Or like I mentioned earlier, an entire group of Rivals.
Yea Hunter rivals are jokes in terms of how tanky they are…
Just give them resitance to diffrent types of damage, make them faster and maybe even make them react faster.
Maybe give them (if only one) an absolut detection sight for the rival hunter. like an experimental vision module maybe?
(range ca 10-15m in front of the light)
Dosen´t even have to be one you can get, like a mech only thing.
I gather a group of seekers so that morer enemies come to me constantly… but I get that new player will/might have problems pre discovering this stuff.
